The following is a monthly article written by Rev Kenneth Stewart to the Stornoway RPCS congregation…
Gambling
Among all the sins evident in 21st century Scotland, the sin of gambling tends to fly under the radar. That may be due, in part at least, to the increasingly rapid disappearance of the once ubiquitous betting shops on the high streets: in the wider UK, 2024 saw over 1,200 close their doors for the last time.
However, the disappearance of the local bookies does not mean the disappearance of gambling – far from it (the real reasons behind these closures are increased business rates and rising minimum wage costs). As for the gambling itself, that has simply relocated. It has moved out of (mainly) old high street buildings, which are costly to maintain, and gone online where casinos and easy digital betting opportunities abound and where gamblers have 24/7 access – which explains the otherwise inexplicable: the rapid fall in the number of betting shops running parallel with an even more rapid rise in gambling revenue.
It is no surprise, then, that Scottish government statistics reveal that over half of the Scottish population gambled between April 2023 and March 2024 and that, of these, around half were gambling in addition to playing the National Lottery.
We strongly suspect that these numbers, bad as they are, are understating the problem. First, in this kind of exercise, those who are surveyed tend to underestimate, as well as under-report, their own involvement. Second, these surveys do not consult prison inmates, military bases, or student halls of residence – all of which, for varied reasons, might have a higher proportion of gamblers.
For these and other reasons, the number of those in the UK reckoned to have a gambling addiction is likely to be nearer half a million rather than the estimated 350,000. Sadly, of these only around 5% look for help.
In spite of the losses acquired by most gamblers, there is a compulsion to keep trying. This came to vividly to my mind observing a woman in Glasgow discussing a potential windfall with her local lottery ticket vendor. She was so excited that someone in her neighbourhood, someone ‘just like me’ had won £500! I would not have considered this woman rich, but that would be no surprise since gambling disproportionately affects the poor who are particularly tempted by the possibility of a quick and easy windfall.
Of course, such a quick and easy windfall very rarely happens. And when it does, it is often more productive of evil than good. I read recently that no less than 70% of national lottery winners in America have been declared bankrupt within five years of winning.
So, why keep doing it?
The famous behavioural psychologist B F Skinner discovered in one of his ‘Skinner Boxes’, which he used to modify the behaviour of animals, that you could train a chicken to keep pecking if you rewarded it with a piece of corn.
If you stopped rewarding the chicken, it would stop pecking. No surprises there! However – and here’s the interesting bit – if you only rewarded the chicken now and again, the chicken would not give up pecking. In fact, it would peck incessantly to the point of exhaustion!
This principle of ‘intermittent reward’, as opposed to ‘sure reward’ drives the gambling industry: a few are rewarded – most of them not significantly – and the rest pour their money, sometimes earned but often received in benefits, into making other people wealthy (have you spotted a poor bookie recently?) Of course, it always helps to ease the conscience when a slice of it is used to advance some social project.
The most obvious phenomenon here is the desire to get rich quickly – and easily. And, in fairness, that is nothing new: during the gold rush, men left their families and, in some cases, worked themselves to death hoping to get super rich super quick, sometimes selling their properties and impoverishing their families in the process.
What makes it all so different today is the number of people involved due to the ease and speed with which we can access things – where expectations can be fulfilled instantly at the command of a voice or at the push of a button. It’s just somehow easier to believe today that something unlikely can happen and that it can happen very quickly.
Lurking behind this desire to get rich quick is an older and more basic problem: an unhealthy attitude to money. According to wisdom of this world, money makes ‘the world go round’ and, listening to many men talk, it’s easy to believe it. In a philosophically materialistic society, questions involving how, where and when you can get, grow, save, and spend the thing seem to dominate more and more conversations.
Undoubtedly the temptation grows for you to join in – if only because you’re increasingly considered irrelevant if you can’t or won’t. And not just irrelevant but worthless – after all, with expressions like ‘he’s worth three million pounds’, it’s hard not to begin thinking that your worth lies in how much wealth you have.
This explains why people who lose money overnight in financial crashes sometimes do very tragic and sinful things to themselves and to others. Their self-worth has entirely evaporated along with their portfolio.
Increasingly, however, many professing Christians are asking if there is anything wrong with gambling – providing no-one, or no animal, is being hurt in the process (as in the repugnant case of dogfighting). If you point out the well-known tendencies of gambling to increase risky, reckless, and sinful behaviour as well as encouraging false expectations of easy wealth at the expense of honest labour, they usually describe these as accompanying irresponsible gambling rather than ‘responsible’ gambling.
However, it is more complex than that.
If we define gambling as the act of risking money or valuables on an outcome determined mostly by chance, with the hope of winning something more in the process of impoverishing the loser, at least to some degree, then the following three truths become relevant.
First, as stewards of God’s resources, we are accountable to Him for what we do with our own resources and with those resources which are currently in the lawful stewardship of others.
Second, we need to realise that in ordinary transactions, there is an exchange of money or goods and services to the benefit of both parties.
In a gambling transaction, your intention is to gain solely at the expense of the other. In this way, your success in gambling is your neighbour’s loss – which is hardly consistent with loving your neighbour as yourself. And since most forms of gambling depend on ‘chance’ (that is, Providence), there is a reliance upon the providence of God – which regulates the dice or the wheel – to arrange your gain at the expense of your neighbour’s loss.
It should be noted too that the mutual agreement of the participants in the process (often seen as purifying the process) doesn’t absolve the winning gambler of plundering his neighbour’s resources – any more than the agreement of two men to a duel with pistols absolves the winner of the sin of murder.
The newer practice of giving a percentage of lottery earnings to various good causes (are they always ‘good’?) only encourages the use of a bad practice by making it produce an occasional good result. The Christian will not ‘do evil that good may come’ (Romans 3:8).
Surely, if we have money to gamble with, then we have money to use on something else instead? Why not give it directly to the poor rather than enriching the rich in the hope that there’s something in it for you?
As always, the only antidote lies in the truth of God.
According to a higher authority than wisdom of this world, money is the ‘root of all kinds of evil’ (1 Timothy 6:10). Few would deny that.
More significantly for us, money doesn’t really provide security either. Many would deny that – after all, one of the reasons money is valued so much is because of the security it supposedly brings. The covetous man may want it to spend but the tendency to rake it in and heap it up can appear in those who want security – hence the financial term ‘securities’ and hence our Saviour’s warning against ‘trusting’ in riches. But what security can it provide against death or hell?
As for happiness, well, money doesn’t provide that either. It’s supposed to do so by bringing us the power and respect which leads to happiness, but these things don’t bring happiness either. (And, by the way, the ‘respect’ which money brings is really closer to admiration or, to be brutally honest, ‘short term adhesion while the going’s good’).
Not only does money fail to guarantee happiness, it also fails to provide it at all. The idea that it does is false. Sadly, it’s one of the oldest deceptions around – and one of the most prevalent. The Devil must be amazed at how often and how easily he is able to pull this one off!
Wealth doesn’t bring happiness because it can’t bring happiness. Happiness comes from relationships – and, at root, from a proper relationship with God. He alone can satisfy the longings of the heart: love, joy, peace – and security. If we have Christ, we have all these and we will never thirst or hunger again, even for money.
The fact is that too much is made of money both by those who have it and by those who don’t.
Christ, who impoverished himself for our sakes, warned us that our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions (Luke 12:15); that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:23); that we cannot serve both God and money (Lk 16:13); that the mere desire to be rich brings temptations and snares (1 Timothy 6:9) and that to acquire and store up riches without considering God or the poor makes us ‘fools’ (Lk 12:20).
We need to remember too that he has promised to supply our needs if we really trust him to do so (Philippians 4:19). And nothing above our needs should give us a moment’s thought anyway (Matthew 6:25-34) since, having food and clothing, with these we should be content (1 Timothy 6:8).
Once you have a correct perspective on life, firmly grounded on the Word of God and the goodness of God, gambling loses all its appeal. Pray for those ensnared by it – and, as is always the needful with these vices, for their families too.
Your minister
